Mangoplah-Cookardinia United-Eastlakes breathed life into the competition with a 65-point thrashing of Griffith on Saturday.
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The Goannas gave their finals chances a huge boost by becoming the first team to down Griffith this season, prevailing 17.12 (114) to 8.1 (49) at Mangoplah Sportsground.
After winning just one of their first five games, MCUE backed up last week's morale-boosting win over Narrandera with arguably the performance of the Riverina League season to date.
The Goannas started strongly to lead by three goals at quarter-time but then broke the game open in the second term by running in four unanswered goals to establish a 44-point advantage at half-time.
While the damage was done, MCUE won both the third and fourth quarters to finish the job.
Ryan Price was outstanding for MCUE and had five goals by midway through the third term, before he injured his ankle.
Teenage forward George Kendall also kicked five goals in another commanding performance at centre-half-forward.
MCUE coach Jeremy Rowe could not have been happier with his team's performance.
"I am incredibly proud of the guys," Rowe said.
"I've been proud and had a lot of respect and time for the group ever since I walked into the place and the effort and engagement that they've showed and the enthusiasm that they've tackled their training with and the respect they've given me and the season and the footy club has been great from day one but to actually execute it and get some reward for their toil is exactly what I feel the group deserved and it does make me incredibly proud of them, there's no doubt."
Rowe said MCUE made a specific focus early in the week not to get caught up in Griffith's reputation, where the Swans have not lost a home and away game since August 2017.
"We genuinely believed that we could win and we focused on the week in regards to not playing them on their reputation because they obviously carry a really good reputation with them at the moment," he said.
"We have a tremendous amount of respect for their professionalism and their consistency, without a doubt but we decided earlier in the week that we weren't going to play them on reputation and we felt that we got so much out of our performance last week against Narrandera.
"So if the question is, did you turn up thinking you could win then the answer is definitely yes, but we thought it was going to be an incredibly hard slog to get to that achievement but if you're saying did you think you were going to beat Griffith by 60-odd points then we've got to be honest and say no, no one turned up here today thinking that could take place."
Rowe said the biggest factor in the Goannas' turnaround over the past fortnight has been their ball movement and how they have executed their systems in a clean and composed manner.
While Price and Kendall dominated up forward, Ethan Schiller, Paddy Griffin and Trent Cohalan led the way through the midfield, while Tim Smith was strong in defence.
The win keeps MCUE in sixth spot, but they remain just a game outside the top five with a big showdown against the fifth-placed Collingullie-Glenfield Park next Saturday.
Rowe said the win over Griffith opens 'a lot of doors' for the Goannas.
"We are certainly not a group or a club that is going to get ahead of ourselves and you've still got to remind yourself of the reality," he said.
"We'll pick up the paper on Monday morning and we're still three wins and four losses so we've got a lot of work to do but we mapped out what we need to do to achieve the things we wanted to achieve a couple of weeks ago and this was something that was not as if it wasn't on the radar but we probably uncertain if we were ready to achieve something like this now.
"We were backing ourselves later in the year, I suppose, but it just opens doors for us where we're not walking that fine of a line where nothing can go wrong anymore. I think it puts us in a position where we can certainly be the masters of our own destiny rather than looking at other results that club A beats club B and that sort of stuff so it does really open some doors for our season, there is no question about that and make no mistake, we're really excited that that has been the case."
Griffith coach Will Griggs led the way for the Swans and was his team's best player, while Jacob Conlan kicked three goals in a losing team.
The Swans finished with no fit players on the bench with Nathan Richards and Mick Duncan among those unable to finish the game.
Griggs was not going to use that as an excuse for one minute however and said the Goannas 'wanted it way more'.
"They outplayed us in every area and we just weren't ourselves today unfortunately," Griggs said.
"Hopefully it's a wake up call."
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